Daily Reading for Sunday, September 7th, 2025

Gospel, Luke 14:25-33

²⁵ Great crowds accompanied him on his way and he turned and spoke to them.

²⁶ 'Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple.

²⁷ No one who does not carry his cross and come after me can be my disciple.

²⁸ 'And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it?

²⁹ Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, anyone who saw it would start making fun of him and saying,

³⁰ "Here is someone who started to build and was unable to finish."

³¹ Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with ten thousand men he could stand up to the other who was advancing against him with twenty thousand?

³² If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace.

³³ So in the same way, none of you can be my disciple without giving up all that he owns.

Reading 2, Philemon 1:9-10, 12-17

⁹ I am rather appealing to your love, being what I am, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus.

¹⁰ I am appealing to you for a child of mine, whose father I became while wearing these chains: I mean Onesimus.

¹² I am sending him back to you -- that is to say, sending you my own heart.

¹³ I should have liked to keep him with me; he could have been a substitute for you, to help me while I am in the chains that the gospel has brought me.

¹⁴ However, I did not want to do anything without your consent; it would have been forcing your act of kindness, which should be spontaneous.

¹⁵ I suppose you have been deprived of Onesimus for a time, merely so that you could have him back for ever,

¹⁶ no longer as a slave, but something much better than a slave, a dear brother; especially dear to me, but how much more to you, both on the natural plane and in the Lord.

¹⁷ So if you grant me any fellowship with yourself, welcome him as you would me;

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